Oh, Snap!
by BackwardsHazard
Summary: -One Shot- A little bit of insanity, Shirou, a pair of gloves and a nice, big explosion. My take on how Shirou could overcome one of Projections more glaring weaknesses.


_**Not much to say but Enjoy :D**_

_**-ooo-**_

Shirou Emiya. A name that strikes fear in the hearts of many a black hearted villain across the multi-verse. It also brings a sense of admiration to the hearts and minds of those saved by him.

But that is neither here nor there at the moment as Shirou Emiya, a man who will someday be known as the King of Fakers is but a child at this moment, a boy at the tender age of eight.

It was a cool day, in the middle of Fall where we find a pair of men... well a man and a young boy, walking the streets of Fuyuki City, perusing a small market street for something to buy.

It was Shirou's birthday today, or at least the day that Shirou thought was his birthday. Eh, it was merely semantics at this point.

The older man next to him was one Kiritsugu Emiya, a man infamous in the magical world as the Magus Killer, currently retired, living out the final years of his life caring for his adopted son. They were currently looking for a gift for said boy as it was indeed his birthday. The day that Kiritsugu had pulled the boy from a raging inferno and later claimed him as his son.

The boy himself was bouncing back and forth from stall to stall looking for something that would catch his interest and force a transfer of money from the older magus to whatever poor merchant Shirou deemed worthy of his time. Due to Shirou's one tracked mind, he felt sorry for anyone who get get the kids attention, because when they did, they got _all_ of it.

Shirou was bouncing around on the balls of his feet as he darted around the market, searching stall after stall for something to buy. It had only been two years since he had weaseled his way into Kiritsugu's head and pulled forth a desire to learn the man's professional trade. Magecraft was something decidedly difficult for the young boy, he had practically no talent, none whatsoever so far unless you counted crappy structural analysis and reinforcement two of some of the most basic spells in the world. It wasn't much, but he could at least call those two skills his, no one else wanted to use them so he might as well. But that wasn't what he was here for, he was here for a present-

Just then a small white glint caught the young boys eyes.

He turned and faced the stray light, wandering over to a small used book stand and picking up the strange thing in front of him.

It was a manga, that much he could discern from the few times he really watched television. it was well worn and dutifully taken care of, and the wear and tear upon the surface of the book was due more to continued use rather than mistreatment.

The cover instantly grabbed him, showing a young blond man dressed in a red overcoat and black shirt pulling on a white glove over his right hand. In the back, behind him there was a giant gothic suit of armor, the face forged into a humanoid face. It was this cover that would change the boy's life forever.

Opening the book to the first chapter, he immediately read words that would stick with him for the rest of his life.

_**A painless lesson is one without any meaning. One who does not sacrifice anything cannot achieve anything.**_

These words resonated in the boy's mind as he devoured the rest of the chapter. It wasn't enough.

Kiritsugu walked up behind his son and stared at the boy's almost intense expression as the child continued to read. "Is this what you want?" he asked curiously, a single eyebrow raised as the boy turned to him, his expression unreadable even by his skilled eyes.

A small nod came and those same eyes turned to the stand to see several other of the books in a line. It was a serial then? A series of books that were more than likely still in circulation and was still currently in publication.

"I suppose you wasn't all of them?" Another nod and a small sigh by the older man.

later and we find the two walking back home, Kiritsugu laden down with a small stack of books and Shirou with his nose in the first one, barely paying attention to the world around him.

Sunlight glinted and Shirou twitched, revealing the cover to the sun, the title of the manga being circled by a halo of golden yellow light.

_**FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST**_

_**-Three years later-**_

Contrary to popular belief, Projection is _not_ an internal magecraft. Sure, many magi would argue against that point, but they were also the kind of magi that would say that Projection was a pathetic waste of time.

To begin to delve into why this is, we need to go back a few years. Shirou was eleven at the time, and in those three years since the boy had bought his first manga, he had barely progressed at all in his magecraft. For everything but Structural Analysis and Reinforcement, he was practically as hopeless cause as a Magus.

Shirou didn't mind this that much, he was always a bit more busy reading manga than learning magecraft. Sure, Kiritsugu scolded him for not taking his training seriously but again, Shirou didn't mind much, mainly because he had his nose buried in another manga at the time. It was his first and most beloved, the pages worn even more from use, he could have read any manga he owned, and he owned several hundred to be sure but it was just this book in particular that flamed his passion, that made him feel _heroic._

And it was at this time that Shirou had something of an epiphany. Alchemy was a legitimate field of Thaumaturgical study and it was something that had always been the subject of Shirou's drive to learn Magecraft. It was at this point that Shirou decided to mix the two.

And so Shirou bugged the crap out of Kiritsugu until said man relented to his demands. The first two weeks were a blur and were largely unimportant as Shirou was simply learning the basics.

It wasn't until the boy had tried something, that fate turned on its head and the world as we all know it got flipped ass over teakettle.

It started as a simple transmutation circle; simple, clean, effective. Shirou channeled prana into the circle...

Then Shirou hit the floor in burning agony, Kiritsugu over him, running a quick structural analysis on Shirou's body to make sure that the boy wasn't- Kiritsugu's eyes widened in horror and fascination. His son had been forging circuits from his nerves, a dangerous and decidedly lethal last resort for any magus trying to perform Thaumaturgy.

He also found Shirou's Element and Origin that day: Sword.

Needless to say Kiritsugu addressed the Circuit issue, silently cursing himself all the while for missing such an oversight that could have killed his adopted son. However that was the past and he now had a reason why his son was so terrible at magic. Deciding to test his little theory, he handed a small kitchen knife to the boy and showed him how to make dinner. Needless to say Kiritsugu burnt water on his first attempt and Shirou had just shook his head, the older magus really was hopeless in the kitchen.

Kiritsugu soon found out that Shirou was a whiz when it came to anything sharp and pointy, he also found out that the kid could kick a four star chef's ass any day of the week when it came to making a meal. Take out, which had become the normal routine, noticeably slowed down to only a few special occasions...

And so time rolled on, Kiritsugu teaching the boy all he knew about alchemy and when it came to Shirou's blade work he merely let nature run it's course by teaching the kid how to project simple things like knives and swords. It wasn't the best use of thaumaturgy, but it worked and that was something that Kiritsugu always appreciated; the application of Magecraft, not the study.

A year later and we find the now twelve year old Shirou alone. Kiritsugu had died not a month before and rather than depress the boy, Shirou instead tore into his Magecraft, devoting all his time and energy into perfecting everything he was capable of, this would serve him well when fate decided to rear it's ugly head.

_**-Four years later-**_

Shirou was having a decidedly terrible time. He had spent more time than necessary cleaning up after school and it was now well past dark time.

This wasn't the problem per se, but it _did _instigate said problem in the form of a crazy blue armor wearing spearman chasing after him. All he did was walk outside and witness a battle between Rin Tohsaka, the schools 'perfect student,' some red guy wielding a pair of swords next to her and some crazy blue spearman. Now that wouldn't have been enough to startle the calm and collected Magus if it hadn't been for that damn spearman noticing him during the battle.

And now the crazy blue bastard was chasing him through the halls of the school, Shirou keeping just ahead of him by running pell mell up flights of stairs ten at a time, using Reinforcement to make damn sure this guy didn't catch him. It was only his problem with hyper focusing that he didn't realize that he was climbing the stairs of his school to the roof.

And then he found just how far the drop was as he stared out over the edge of the school, clearly and irrevocably blocked in. A leap of faith on one side, crazy blue guy on the other.

"Just give up kid, come and face death like a man." Sure you blue asshole I'll do just that.

Ignoring his sarcastic brain for a moment, Shirou took the time to analyze his opponent. The only reason he hadn't before was because the bastard had been nipping at his heels with that damn spear of his. Now that they were at a comfortable distance... hooo damn that spear is _cursed_.

_'Guess the kid gloves come off and the big boy gloves are on.'_ The sword magus reached a hand into the pocket of his vaguely familiar red trench coat, slipping on a glove while he did so.

"I don't know what you're planning kid but you ain't got a chance!" Big words, for a dead man.

Shirou pulled a gloved hand from his coat pocket and pointed said hand at the Lancer.

"I only have two words to say to that." Shirou's voice echoed with barely contained power.

"Oh?" Lancer's eyebrows rose a bit at the aura of power swirling up. "And what exactly are these words, kid?"

Shirou smirked. "Trace on."

Then he snapped his fingers, the runes etched into the fingertips activating the Alchemic symbol stitched onto the back of the glove as hundreds, no _thousands_ of swords popped into view all around Shirou. Lancers eyes widened.

Let us go back to the key point of this little tale, Projection is _not_ an internal magecraft.

Gradation Air, Other wise known as Projection, are constructions of prana and a Magus' will. The name comes from the fact that the projection will gradually fade over time due to Gaia recognizing the magecraft as unnatural, removing it from existence by gradually eating away at it. The stronger the presence of the weapon the stronger reaction to it until such a point that the weapon would be immediately destroyed upon it's creation.

Tracing is an advanced form of projections and helps with this process by making the projections more stable, this in turn allows for said projections to last a great deal longer in the material world. The seven steps necessary for this are as follows: Judging the concept of creation, Hypothesizing the basic structure, Duplicating the composition material, Imitating the skill of its making, Sympathizing with the experience of its growth, Reproducing the accumulated years and Excelling every manufacturing process.

And yet a single change in ones' childhood mentality can affect so much, Shirou capitalizes on this by adding an eighth step to his tracing.

Add kickass Transmutation circles.

Shirou's innumerable swords flashed dangerously, bright alchemic circles etched into the metal surfaces of the blades, Lancer gulped slightly.

Imagine for a moment, an empty five gallon paint bucket. It's cheap, relatively easy to make and is useful. Now imagine dropping those from a great height on top of someone's head. Most likely the thing wouldn't do much damage, perhaps stun the target for a moment but doing no lasting harm.

Now Imagine filling that bucket with water and dropping it... There is, however a problem with that. Mainly that the water would most likely fly out of the bucket on the way down, making the bucket again lightweight and useless for anything more than a bucket.

But, then again... Alchemic arrays tend to put a lid on things. A snap of the fingers and a Circle draws in Mana. Channeling that Mana is difficult, but not that tiring due to the magic of the glove. Form a shell with prana then fill it with the collected Mana. Finally, add a preservative alchemic circle to the weapons so that Gaia's interference takes a bit longer than normal.

Shirou Emiya, a teen that has access to maybe twenty or thirty units of prana a day, most people would consider this average and unworthy of note. Which means that using Projected weapons tends to drain him rather quickly, so any little bit of eeked out prana is a godsend for the sword magus.

But when you're using only a fraction of one percent of your Od to create an empty shell and a weak alchemic tag, all of that strain seems entirely overrated.

So to finalize this statement. Projection is NOT an internal magecraft... at least, not for Shirou.

"Well that's not fair at all..." lancer mumbled under his breath, the last thing he would say as the wall of metal death closed in on him. Sure, he could block quite a few of them, possibly all of them if his master dumped enough prana into it..

But then the alchemic seals failed like Shirou intended and the uncountable swords went critical, exploding the fragile shell of the weapon and releasing the concentrated Mana out like a bright white grenade.

As the explosion engulfed the roof tops Shirou leapt off the building, projecting a parachute midair to slow his decent. As he touched down the construct of cloth disintegrated, having been filled with Mana it didn't last near as long as it should have, but it really wasn't that far to the ground so it wasn't that big a deal.

Blood and gore rained down on Shirou who had the presence of mind to trace an umbrella over his head.

Shirou glanced at the bits of lancer lying around. "Man, the look on his face, which is currently all over that wall... I must of surprised the hell of him."

*Thunk*

The sword Magus glanced down at the large chunk of pinkish meat that looked vaguely like Lancers brain.

"Huh, he was so surprised I guess I-" A pair of dark black sunglasses formed in Shirou's hand, which he lazily placed on his face. "-Blew his mind."

_**YEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!**_

_**-ooo-**_

_**I'm such a retard heh heh hehee...**_

_**This little one shot of stupidity was inspired by a small conversation I had with a user by the name of Nightgale912. So complaints go to him from this little bout of silliness.**_

_**But seriously, we had a nice discussion about my fate stay night/ Soul Calibur cross and how Shirou can use Mana to power some of his projections. Nightgale kept saying that projection magecraft was an internal magic, that you cant use Mana with it. I disagreed. I spoke my piece on how Shirou could add Mana to a traced sword like he was filling a bucket of water. Nightgale came back with an explanation on how Gaia would only degrade that projection even faster if it was made of Mana and also postulating a couple theories about how Alaya might actually be blocking some of Gaia's influence which is why Projections don't just explode into nothing as soon as they are made. So that's why Projections degrade rather than simply explode when they are made. The more Mana the faster the degradation. **_

_**Now, Shirou after UBW is absorbing EMIYA's memories and EMIYA was most likely in his early thirty's or more when he died, and Shirou in my story has lived ten years after THAT. So all combined it's probably around twenty five plus years of tracing knowledge under Shirou's belt. If the guy hasn't found a way to cheat the system and use Mana to power some of his projections by now then I don't know if he ever will.**_

_**Which lead to the culmination of my conversation with nightgale. Basically I said that Shirou rarely IF EVER uses his projections for more than five minutes, even less when he's pitching waves of swords around like wedding rice, so those swords only need to be around for maybe a dozen seconds at most. Which would be like Shirou using a 30/70 mix of Od to Mana to make a volatile prana mixture for his swords. This would enable him to extensively lengthen his battle time by allowing him to conserve his Od use. **_

_**And then NightGale mentions something about a traced glove that would allow him to channel Mana and my mind immediately snapped to Colonel Mustang and his spark gloves. We hade a small conversation after that but by then my mind was made up and I wanted to do this little bit of insanity.**_

_**Like I said in the chapter, Alchemy is a legit field of study in Nasuverse, it's the basis of creating Homunculi, which is what Ilya and her mother are, along with the maids for the Einzbern family. And since Kiritsugu has a more than passing acquaintance connection to the Einzbern, he'd know at least SOME passing Alchemy to teach Shirou, hell I could bullshit it and have Irisviel teach Kiritsugu some and have it passed on to Shirou if need be.**_

_**But that's not the point really. The point is, Shirou with Mustang's gloves that allow him to make exploding swords and dressed up like Edward Elric in his badass longcoat of badass redness. TELL ME that doesn't sound badass!**_

_**Ahem, I might have fangasmed a bit too hard there, but my point still stands. This is just a one shot at the moment, but I think I'll keep this story in reserve in case I want to start a story from it later.**_

_**I hope you enjoyed this little oneshot of insanity and I'll have some new chapters out for my other stories here in a few days if I can manage it.**_

_**Peace.**_


End file.
